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Shakespearean Sonnet Basics: Iambic Pentameter and the English Sonnet Style
Shakespeare's sonnets are written predominantly in a meter called iambic pentameter, a rhyme scheme in which each sonnet line consists of ten syllables. The syllables are divided into five pairs called iambs or iambic feet. An iamb is a metrical unit made up of one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed syllable. An example of an iamb would be good BYE. A line of iambic pentameter flows like this:

baBOOM / baBOOM / baBOOM / baBOOM / baBOOM.

Here are some examples from the sonnets:

When I / do COUNT / the CLOCK / that TELLS / the TIME ( Sonnet 12)

When IN / dis GRACE / with FOR / tune AND / men's EYES
I ALL / a LONE / be WEEP / my OUT/ cast STATE ( Sonnet 29)

Shall I / com PARE/ thee TO / a SUM / mer's DAY?
Thou ART / more LOVE / ly AND / more TEM / per ATE ( Sonnet 18)

Shakespeare's plays are also written primarily in iambic pentameter, but the lines are unrhymed and not grouped into stanzas. Unrhymed iambic pentameter is called blank verse. It should be noted that there are also many prose passages in Shakespeare's plays and some lines of trochaic tetrameter, such as the Witches' speeches in Macbeth.

Sonnet Structure
There are fourteen lines in a Shakespearean sonnet. The first twelve lines are divided into three quatrains with four lines each. In the three quatrains the poet establishes a theme or problem and then resolves it in the final two lines, called the couplet. The rhyme scheme of the quatrains is abab cdcd efef. The couplet has the rhyme scheme gg. This sonnet structure is commonly called the English sonnet or the Shakespearean sonnet, to distinguish it from the Italian Petrarchan sonnet form which has two parts: a rhyming octave (abbaabba) and a rhyming sestet (cdcdcd). The Petrarchan sonnet style was extremely popular with Elizabethan sonneteers, much to Shakespeare's disdain (he mocks the conventional and excessive Petrarchan style in Sonnet 130).

Only three of Shakespeare's 154 sonnets do not conform to this structure: Sonnet 99, which has 15 lines; Sonnet 126, which has 12 lines; and Sonnet 145, which is written in iambic tetrameter.

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How to cite this article:
Mabillard, Amanda.Shakespearean Sonnet Basics: Iambic Pentameter and the English Sonnet Style. Shakespeare Online. 30 Aug. 2000. < http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/sonnetstyle.html >.
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Even More...

Queen Elizabeth: Shakespeare's Patron
King James I of England: Shakespeare's Patron
The Earl of Southampton: Shakespeare's Patron
Going to a Play in Elizabethan London

Shakespeare Glossary
Shakespeare Quotations (by Play and Theme)
Early Versions of Shakespeare's Plays
Shakespeare's Edward III?

Shakespeare's Audience in his Day
Shakespeare's Trap Doors

Shakespeare's Language
Why Study Shakespeare?
Portraits of Shakespeare
Shakespeare's Contemporaries

More to Explore
Introduction to Shakespeare's Sonnets
How to Analyze a Shakespearean Sonnet
Theories Regarding the Sonnets
The Rules of Shakespearean Sonnets

Shakespeare's Sonnets: Q & A
Are Shakespeare's Sonnets Autobiographical?
Petrarch's Influence on Shakespeare
Themes in Shakespeare's Sonnets

Shakespeare's Treatment of Love
Shakespeare's Most Famous Love Quotes
The Order of the Sonnets
The Date of the Sonnets

Shakespeare and the Earl of Southampton
Who was Mr. W. H.?
Are the Sonnets Addressed to Two Persons?
Who was The Rival Poet?

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Sonnet Notes ... Sonnet 75 opens with a seemingly joyous and innocent tribute to the young friend who is vital to the poet's emotional well being. However, the poet quickly establishes the negative aspect of his dependence on his beloved, and the complimentary metaphor that the friend is food for his soul decays into ugly imagery of the poet alternating between starving and gorging himself on that food. The poet is disgusted and frightened by his dependence on the young friend. He is consumed by guilt over his passion. Words with implicit sexual meanings permeate the sonnet -- "enjoyer", "treasure", "pursuing", "possessing", "had" -- as do allusions to five of the seven "deadly" sins -- avarice (4), gluttony (9, 14), pride (5), lust (12), and envy (6). Read on...

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Shakespeare on Jealousy
Shakespeare on Lawyers
Shakespeare on Lust
Shakespeare on Marriage

Shakespeare in Old English?
Shakespeare's Influence on Other Writers
An Elizabethan Christmas
Clothing in Elizabethan England

Ben Jonson and the Decline of the Drama
Publishing in Elizabethan England
Shakespeare's Audience
Religion in Shakespeare's England

Alchemy and Astrology in Shakespeare's Day
Entertainment in Elizabethan England
London's First Public Playhouse
Shakespeare Hits the Big Time

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Shakespearean Sonnet Basics: Iambic Pentameter and the English Sonnet Style

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Shakespeare's sonnets are written predominantly in a meter called iambic pentameter, a rhyme scheme in which each sonnet line consists of ten syllables. The syllables are divided into five pairs called iambs or iambic feet. An iamb is a metrical unit made up of one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed syllable.

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When we speak of the meter of a poem, we are referring to its overall rhythm, or, more specifically, the syllables and words used to create that rhythm. One of the most interesting in literature is iambic pentameter, which Shakespeare nearly always used when writing in verse. Most of his plays were also written in iambic pentameter, except for lower-class characters, who speak in prose.

Iamb What Iamb

In order to understand iambic pentameter, we must first understand what an iamb is. Simply, put an iamb (or iambus) is a unit of stressed and unstressed syllables that are used in a line of poetry. Sometimes called an iambic foot, this unit can be a single word of two syllables or two words of one syllable each. For instance, the word "airplane" is one unit, with "air" as the stressed syllable and "plane" as the unstressed. Likewise, the phrase "the dog" is one unit, with "the" as the unstressed syllable and "dog" as the stressed.

Putting the Feet Together

Iambic pentameter refers to the number of total syllables in a line of poetry-in this case, 10, composed of five pairs of alternating unstressed and stressed syllables. So the rhythm ends up sounding like this:

Most of Shakespeare's famous lines fit into this rhythm. For example:

Rhythmic Variations

In his plays, Shakespeare didn't always stick to ten syllables. He often played around with iambic meter to give color and feeling to his character's speeches. This is the key to understanding Shakespeare's language. For instance, he sometimes added an extra unstressed beat at the end of a line to emphasize a character's mood. This variation is called a feminine ending, and this famous question is the perfect example:

Shakespeare also reverses the order of the stresses in some iambi to help emphasize certain words or ideas. If you look closely at the fourth iambus in the quote from "Hamlet" above, you can see how he has placed an emphasis on the word "that" by inverting the stresses.

Occasionally, Shakespeare will completely break the rules and place two stressed syllables in the same iambus, as the following quotation demonstrates:

In this example, the fourth iambus emphasizes that it is "our discontent," and the first iambus emphasizes that we are feeling this "now."

Why Is Iambic Pentameter Important?

Shakespeare will always feature prominently in any discussion of iambic pentameter because he used the form with great dexterity, especially in his sonnets, but he did not invent it. Rather, it is a standard literary convention that has been used by many writers before and after Shakespeare.

Historians are not sure how the speeches were read aloud-whether delivered naturally or with an emphasis on the stressed words. This is unimportant. What really matters is that the study of iambic pentameter gives us a glimpse into the inner workings of Shakespeare's writing process, and marks him as a master of rhythm to evoke specific emotions, from dramatic to humorous.

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How Shakespeare Uses Meter to Create Rhythm and Emotion

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When we speak of the meter of a poem, we are referring to its overall rhythm, or, more specifically, the syllables and words used to create that rhythm. One of the most interesting in literature is iambic pentameter, which Shakespeare nearly always used when writing in verse.

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What are William Shakespeare's contributions to English literature? | eNotes

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Get an answer for 'What are William Shakespeare's contributions to English literature?' and find homework help for other William Shakespeare questions at eNotes

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(most known for romeo and juliet)

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Complete list of Shakespeare's plays, by genre :|: Open Source Shakespeare

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A presentation produced by the 4 th class of the Secondary school specializing in modern languages in Lido degli Estensi, Ferrara, ITALY

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William Shakespeare: A biography

Since William Shakespeare lived more than 400 years ago, and many records from that time are lost or never existed in the first place, we don't know everything about Shakespeare's life. For example, we know that he was baptized in Stratford-upon-Avon, 100 miles northwest of London, on April 26, 1564. But we don't know his exact birthdate, which must have been a few days earlier.

We do know that Shakespeare's life revolved around two locations: Stratford and London. He grew up, had a family, and bought property in Stratford, but he worked in London, the center of English theater. As an actor, a playwright, and a partner in a leading acting company, he became both prosperous and well-known. Even without knowing everything about his life, fans of Shakespeare have imagined and reimagined him according to their own tastes.

Looking for more in-depth information? Need something you can cite? Read an essay about Shakespeare's life from the Folger Shakespeare Editions. Read essay

Early life: Birth and childhood

William Shakespeare was probably born on about April 23, 1564, the date that is traditionally given for his birth. He was John and Mary Shakespeare's oldest surviving child; their first two children, both girls, did not live beyond infancy. Growing up as the big brother of the family, William had three younger brothers, Gilbert, Richard, and Edmund, and two younger sisters: Anne, who died at seven, and Joan.

Their father, John Shakespeare, was a leatherworker who specialized in the soft white leather used for gloves and similar items. A prosperous businessman, he married Mary Arden, of the prominent Arden family. John rose through local offices in Stratford, becoming an alderman and eventually, when William was five, the town bailiff-much like a mayor. Not long after that, however, John Shakespeare stepped back from public life; we don't know why.

Shakespeare, as the son of a leading Stratford citizen, almost certainly attended Stratford's grammar school. Like all such schools, its curriculum consisted of an intense emphasis on the Latin classics, including memorization, writing, and acting classic Latin plays. Shakespeare most likely attended until about age 15.

A horn book in the Folger collection, similar to one that Shakespeare might have learned to read from

Marriage (to Anne Hathaway) and children

A few years after he left school, in late 1582, William Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway. She was already expecting their first-born child, Susanna, which was a fairly common situation at the time. When they married, Anne was 26 and William was 18. Anne grew up just outside Stratford in the village of Shottery. After marrying, she spent the rest of her life in Stratford.

In early 1585, the couple had twins, Judith and Hamnet, completing the family. In the years ahead, Anne and the children lived in Stratford while Shakespeare worked in London, although we don't know when he moved there. Some later observers have suggested that this separation, and the couple's relatively few children, were signs of a strained marriage, but we do not know that, either. Someone pursuing a theater career had no choice but to work in London, and many branches of the Shakespeares had small families.

Shakespeare's only son, Hamnet, died in 1596 at the age of 11. His older daughter Susanna later married a well-to-do Stratford doctor, John Hall. Their daughter Elizabeth, Shakespeare's first grandchild, was born in 1608. In 1616, just months before his death, Shakespeare's daughter Judith married Thomas Quiney, a Stratford vintner. The family subsequently died out, leaving no direct descendants of Shakespeare.

London theater

For several years after the birth of Judith and Hamnet in 1585, nothing is known for certain of Shakespeare's activities: how he earned a living, when he moved from Stratford, or how he got his start in the theater.

Following this gap in the record, the first definite mention of Shakespeare is in 1592 as an established London actor and playwright, mocked by a contemporary as a "Shake-scene." The same writer alludes to one of Shakespeare's earliest history plays, Henry VI, Part 3, which must already have been performed. The next year, in 1593, Shakespeare published a long poem, Venus and Adonis. The first quarto editions of his early plays appeared in 1594.

For more than two decades, Shakespeare had multiple roles in the London theater as an actor, playwright, and, in time, a business partner in a major acting company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men (renamed the King's Men in 1603). Over the years, he became steadily more famous in the London theater world; his name, which was not even listed on the first quartos of his plays, became a regular feature-clearly a selling point-on later title pages.

Final years and death

Shakespeare prospered financially from his partnership in the Lord Chamberlain's Men (later the King's Men), as well as from his writing and acting. He invested much of his wealth in real-estate purchases in Stratford and bought the second-largest house in town, New Place, in 1597.

Among the last plays that Shakespeare worked on was The Two Noble Kinsmen, which he wrote with a frequent collaborator, John Fletcher, most likely in 1613. He died on April 23, 1616-the traditional date of his birthday, though his precise birthdate is unknown. We also do not know the cause of his death. His brother-in-law had died a week earlier, which could imply infectious disease, but Shakespeare's health may have had a longer decline.

The memorial bust of Shakespeare at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford is considered one of two authentic likenesses, because it was approved by people who knew him. The other such likeness is the engraving by Martin Droeshout in the 1623 First Folio edition of Shakespeare's plays, produced seven years after his death by his friends and colleagues from the King's Men.

Timeline

View a timeline of Shakespeare's life with links to key supporting documents on Shakespeare Documented.
View timeline

The bust of Shakespeare in the Folger Reading Room is a copy of the statue at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford.

Frequently asked questions

Why did Shakespeare leave his wife his "second best bed"?

William Shakespeare wrote in his last will and testament, dated March 25, 1616, "Item I gyve unto my wife my second best bed with the furniture" (furniture is used to refer to the curtains and bedcover which formed part of the complete bed).

This was not an unusual bequest, nor was it likely to have been intended as a snub. The best bed was usually regarded as an heirloom piece, to be passed to the heir rather than the spouse. It is also probable that the best bed would have been reserved for guests, meaning the "second best" was the bed that William and Anne shared.

What did Shakespeare's son die of?

We don't really know how Shakespeare's young son Hamnet died. He had a twin sister named Judith, who lived to adulthood and married, but Hamnet died at the age of 11 and a half. Child mortality was high in the 16th century; there were no antibiotics and many childhood diseases might therefore prove fatal, such as scarlet fever, whooping cough, diphtheria, and even measles. He was buried on August 11, 1596.

What is the inscription on Shakespeare's grave?

GOOD FREND FOR JESUS SAKE FORBEARE,
TO DIGG THE DUST ENCLOASED HEARE:
BLESTE BE Ye [the] MAN Yt [that] SPARES THES STONES,
AND CURST BE HE Yt [that] MOVES MY BONES.

Did Shakespeare have a coat of arms?

Yes, William's father, John Shakespeare, was granted a coat of arms in 1596. It was disputed in 1602 by York Herald, Ralph Brooke, saying that the arms were too similar to existing coats of arms, and that the family was unworthy. However, the challenge was unsuccessful, as the Shakespeare coat of arms appears in later heraldic collections and on William Shakespeare's funeral monument in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon-Avon.

Does Shakespeare have descendants?

William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway had three children. The eldest, Susanna, was baptized on May 26, 1583, and married John Hall in 1607. They had one child, Elizabeth, in 1608. Elizabeth was married twice, to Thomas Nash in 1626, and to John Bernard in 1649. However, she had no children by either husband.

William and Anne also had twins, Judith and Hamnet, who were baptized on February 2, 1585. Hamnet died at age 11 and a half. Judith married Thomas Quiney in 1616, and the couple had three sons: Shakespeare Quiney, who died in infancy, and Richard and Thomas, who both died in 1639 within a month of each other. Since neither of the boys married, there is no possibility of any legitimate descendants from Shakespeare's line.

It is possible, however, to claim a relationship to Shakespeare through his sister, Joan. She married William Hart some time before 1600, and there are many descendants of this marriage alive today, in both the male and female lines.

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Shakespeare's life | Folger Shakespeare Library

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Learn about Shakespeare's life and family: birth in Stratford-upon-Avon, marriage to Anne Hathaway and their children, work in London theaters, and death.

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William Shakespeare (1564-1616). English poet and playwright - Shakespeare is widely considered to be the greatest writer in the English language. He wrote 38 plays and 154 sonnets.
Short bio of William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon on 23rd April 1564.

His father William was a successful local businessman, and his mother Mary was the daughter of a landowner. Relatively prosperous, it is likely the family paid for Williams education, although there is no evidence he attended university.

In 1582 William, aged only 18, married an older woman named Anne Hathaway. They had three children, Susanna, Hamnet and Juliet. Their only son Hamnet died aged just 11.

After his marriage, information about the life of Shakespeare is sketchy, but it seems he spent most of his time in London - writing and acting in his plays.

Due to some well-timed investments, Shakespeare was able to secure a firm financial background, leaving time for writing and acting. The best of these investments was buying some real estate near Stratford in 1605, which soon doubled in value.

It seemed Shakespeare didn't mind being absent from his family - he only returned home during Lent when all the theatres were closed. It is thought that during the 1590s he wrote the majority of his sonnets. This was a time of prolific writing and his plays developed a good deal of interest and controversy. His early plays were mainly comedies (e.g. Much Ado about Nothing, A Midsummer's Night Dream) and histories (e.g. Henry V)

By the early Seventeenth Century, Shakespeare had begun to write plays in the genre of tragedy. These plays, such as Hamlet, Othello and King Lear, often hinge on some fatal error or flaw in the lead character and provide fascinating insights into the darker aspects of human nature. These later plays are considered Shakespeare's finest achievements.

When writing an introduction to Shakespeare's First Folio of published plays in 1623, Johnson wrote of Shakespeare:

"not of an age, but for all time"

Shakespeare the Poet

William Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets mostly in the 1590s. These short poems, deal with issues such as lost love. His sonnets have an enduring appeal due to his formidable skill with language and words.

"Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:"

- Sonnet CXVI

The Plays of Shakespeare

The plays of Shakespeare have been studied more than any other writing in the English language and have been translated into numerous languages. He was rare as a play-write for excelling in tragedies, comedies and histories. He deftly combined popular entertainment with an extraordinary poetic capacity for expression which is almost mantric in quality.

"This above all: to thine ownself be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell: my blessing season this in thee!"

- Lord Polonius, Hamlet Act I, Scene 3

During his lifetime, Shakespeare was not without controversy, but he also received lavish praise for his plays which were very popular and commercially successful.

His plays have retained an enduring appeal throughout history and the world. Some of his most popular plays include:

Twelfth Night

Henry V

Romeo and Juliet

Macbeth

Hamlet

King Lear

Othello

"All the world's a stage,
and all the men and women merely players:
they have their exits and their entrances;
and one man in his time plays many parts..."

Death of Shakespeare

Shakespeare died in 1616; it is not clear how he died, and numerous suggestions have been put forward. John Ward, the local vicar of Holy Trinity Church in Stratford (where Shakespeare is buried), writes in a diary account that:

"Shakespeare, Drayton, and Ben Jonson had a merry meeting and it seems drank too hard, for Shakespeare died of a fever there contracted."

In 1616, there was an outbreak of typhus ("The new fever") which may have been the cause. The average life expectancy of someone born in London, England in the Sixteenth Century was about 35 years old, Shakespeare died age 52.

Was Shakespeare really Shakespeare?

Some academics, known as the "Oxfords," claim that Shakespeare never actually wrote any plays. They contend Shakespeare was actually just a successful businessman, and for authorship suggest names such as Edward de Vere, the 17th Arguments have also been made for Earl of Oxford. Francis Bacon. The argument that Shakespeare was actually the Earl of Oxford relies on circumstantial evidence and similarities in his writing style and relationships between his life and the play of Shakespeare.

However, there is no hard evidence tying the Earl of Oxford to the theatre or writing the scripts. By contrast, there is evidence of William Shakespeare working in theatres and he received a variety of criticism from people such as Ben Johnson and Robert Greene. Also, the Earl of Oxford died in 1604, and it is generally agreed there were 12 plays published after this date. (Oxfords contend these plays were finished by other writers.)

It is also hard to believe the vain Earl of Oxford (who killed one of his own servants) would write such amazing scripts and then be happy with anonymity. Also, to maintain anonymity, it would also require the co-operation of numerous family members and other figures in the theatre world. The theory of other writers to Shakespeare only emerged centuries after the publishing of the First Folio.
Shakespeare's Epitaph
Good friend for Jesus sake forbeare
To digg the dust encloased heare
Blessed by y man y spares hes stones
And curst be he y moves my bones

- More interesting facts on Shakespeare

Quotes on Shakespeare

"Shakespeare, no mere child of nature; no automaton of genius; no passive vehicle of inspiration possessed by the spirit, not possessing it; first studied patiently, meditated deeply, understood minutely, till knowledge became habitual and intuitive, wedded itself to his habitual feelings, and at length gave birth to that stupendous power by which he stands alone, with no equal or second in his own class; to that power which seated him on one of the two glorysmitten summits of the poetic mountain, with Milton's his compeer, not rival."

- Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Biographia Literaria (1817)

Citation: Pettinger, Tejvan. "Biography of William Shakespeare", Oxford, www.biographyonline.net , 18th May 2006. Last updated 1 March 2019.

Popular quotes of Shakespeare

"This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man."

- Polonius, giving Laertes a pep talk. ( Hamlet)

"To be, or not to be: that is the question
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them. To die: to sleep;"

- Hamlet

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in our philosophy."

- Hamlet (to Horatio on seeing a ghost)

"We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep."

- The Tempest (Prospero)

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings."

Julius Caesar (Cassius to Brutus)

"Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing."

- Macbeth (on learning of the death of Queen)

"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."

- Hamlet in Hamlet

"Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin, as self-neglecting."

-Dauphin in Henry V

"Our doubts are traitors,
And make us lose the good we oft might win,
By fearing to attempt."

-Lucio in Measure for Measure

The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition

The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition at Amazon

Shakespeare: The Biography

Shakespeare: The Biography at Amazon
Related pages
Famous English people - Famous English men and women. From Anne Boleyn and Queen Elizabeth I to Henry VIII and Winston Churchill. Includes the great poets - William Shakespeare, William Blake and William Wordsworth.

Great Briton list - Top 100 famous Britons as voted by a BBC poll. Including Winston Churchill, William Shakespeare, Thomas Cromwell and Queen Elizabeth I.

Writers and authors - Famous authors such as J.R.R. Tolkien, William Shakespeare, J.K. Rowling, Jane Austen, Leo Tolstoy, John Steinbeck and Ernest Hemingway.

Other Biographies and Resources on Shakespeare

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William Shakespeare (1564-1616). English poet and playwright - Shakespeare is widely considered to be the greatest writer in the English language. He wrote 38 plays and 154 sonnets. Short bio of William Shakespeare William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon on 23rd April 1564.

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Happy Birthday, Shakespeare! You may be turning 450, but to us, you don't look a day over 300. Your impact on today's society keeps you young - your plays are reenacted by kids and adults across the globe, your invented words are used in the English language on the daily, and your style is as fresh as ever.

Shakespeare was a pioneer of English language, literature, and culture - so it's no surprise that we're a big fan. And if there's one thing Shakespeare would love, it's a list of his top five contributions to modern society! Here's the lineup:

1. Great plays

If your school taught English literature, odds are you studied a Shakespearean play. You might've walked into the first day of class rolling your eyes, but you quickly found yourself hooked. In no time, you were vehemently vouching for Beatrice's importance in Much Ado About Nothing, or unintentionally identifying with Iago from Othello (yikes...) in front of all your classmates. Whether you ran to drama club auditions, read plays under the covers with a flashlight, or simply kept the works and lessons close to your heart, Shakespeare tends to make a lasting impact. The guy's plays started hitting theaters in 1592, and we're still talking about him. A Mango can only dream of that kind of longevity.

2. The best insults ever

When you're writing plays about love, jealousy, and betrayal, you're bound to dish out some pretty epic insults - especially if you happen to possess the dramatic chops of Shakespeare. For all the speeches contemplating love and the meaning of life, there's also some pretty straight forward, old-school burns. Want to throw down Shakespearean style? This handy site brings together some of Shakespeare's most memorable insults. Use them wisely - they're known to prompt some pretty serious consequences.

3. His collar

This requires no explanation, only photographic evidence . The man had style, and on his birthday, we raise a glass to his Renaissance ruff collar and the legacy it left behind. For future actors, playwrights, and poets, you've set the fashion bar very high.

4. The best pick-up lines ever

If we hear one more person ask if it hurt when she fell from heaven, we'll go all Macbeth on you - you can do so much better. Shakespeare knew true romance, and he composed stacks on stacks of blush-worthy pick-up lines that would send your lover, best friend, and current partner into a frenzy. Shakespeare's characters were the original Romeos (truly!), and they wooed, courted, and sweet-talked with the best of them. We can nearly hear Romeo now, dazzling Juliet: "Sin from thy lips? O trespass sweetly urged! Give me my sin again." Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo? Just a head's up, we're here at Mango Headquarters, waiting for you.

5. These invented English words

Shakespeare is responsible for over 1700 common words in the English language. We've managed to turn "mango" into a noun, adjective, and occasional verb, which means we've only got 1,699 to go before we're on Shakespeare's level. Just to name a few, we were shocked that these words have Shakespearean origins: elbow, champion, blanket, fashionable, gloomy, puking, swagger, and amazement. Next time you use a Shakespeare-invented word, pay homage to William S. He's the reason people are able to be in amazement of your fashionable elbow swagger, you champion.

We've all got a little bit, or a lot, of Shakespeare in us - and today's the day to drop some quotes, propose a toast, and spend some time with the man, the mystery, the legend: William Shakespeare. Happy 4-5-0, Shakespeare!

Take Romeo and Juliet to the next level by quoting lines in one of the Romance languages. Make Shakespeare proud, and explore a new language and culture with Mango today!

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5 Things Shakespeare Gave to Modern Society

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Happy Birthday, Shakespeare! You may be turning 450, but to us, you don't look a day over 300. Your impact on today's society keeps you young - your plays are reenacted by kids and adults across the globe, your invented words are used in the English language on the daily, and your style is as fresh as ever.